Hello fellow HT lovers!

Just a quick FYI:

In the article on this website entitled "Ten Things You Need to Know About 1080P" by Alan Loft, bullet point #3 is incorrect.

Thanks,
TL Ipswich, MA

Which part of the sentence are you referring to? Is it "If you already own an HD set that is several years old, it will likely be a 720p model (rarely 1080i unless it's a CRT HD set)"?

iykht,

It is interesting that you point out something you feel is incorrect, however, you don't back it with facts to validate your blank statements.

From the article in question: "3. If you already own an HD set that is several years old, it will likely be a 720p model (rarely 1080i unless it's a CRT HD set), so there is no point in getting video sources that deliver a 1080p image because your video device can't display the extra pixels, unless of course you decide to replace your 720p or 1080i HDTV with a 1080p HDTV."

At the risk of rising to the bait, he doesn't even have the integrity to say exactly what he believes is incorrect, let alone back it up with any evidence.

Regardless, whether his criticism is accurate or not, a post like that is hardly an endearing way to introduce oneself to any forum. I'm always amazed by people who blow into a forum, fail to make the effort or take the time to observe and learn the dynamic in play, whip out their pistol and take a potshot in their very first post. Perfect example of how not to win friends and influence people.

Of course, if the goal is merely to insult and anger, that is the perfect formula, and iykht will likely ride off into the sunset patting himself on the back and saying "oh what a good boy am I. Everybody must think I'm so cool ."

Calm down boys.
It is Sunday and the holidays have already begun.
Spike the eggnog a bit stronger.

Gotta agree with Chess here. The guy may have just popped on and disappeared, but maybe he genuinely thought there was something wrong with that statement. That's not the usual kind of troll we get--usually it's a bit more inflammatory.

Perhaps the OP read Alan's statement as saying "unless you have a 1080p display you might as well not get an HD-DVD or BluRay player" which of course is not the case.

That reminds me -- are HD/BR 1080i native, or 1080p ? I seem to remember that the info is stored as interlaced fields on disk.

Hmm. Further research indicates that this is not clear to many people

The most common view is that both HD-DVD and BR store full frames at 24 fps, although there is a recurring mention of HD-DVD storing video using "60i timing for 24p frames" whatever the heck that means -- AFAIK there is no actual timing info on the disk, just a series of compressed fields/frames plus flags indicating how they should be displayed.

If you look at the players, the A2? only does 720P/1080i so if the info is in 1080P it is scaled down then. Now we are getting into the nitty gritty.

All I care about is it looks better and more importantly works.

Hey guys! Axiom sucks.

I'm not a very good troll

Don't let your Dad see this

Guys, guys, guys relax a bit would ya!

I got one kid who's sick the other ones are running around to all sort of Christmas events, had my wife's company Christmas party to go to, etc, etc, etc. Cripes I just posted it last night. (Thank you Chessaroo). And Bridgman, you nailed it. There is of course plenty of reason to watch BR/HDDVD on ANY High Def screen. What Alan says about the device being unable to display the extra pixels is indeed true. However, prior to the arrival of BR/HDDVD the best option for those of us who owned an HD set and wanted to watch movies on disc was regular DVD played on an upconverting player. These upconverting chipsets have evolved by leaps and bounds. But no matter how good they get the simple fact will always remain: What they do is take non-HD 480 resolution, blow it up to 720p or 1080i, then tries to imagine what should go into all the empty spaces. It's amazing technology thats very impressive to look at on screen. Now, (without going out and buying a 1080P set), hook up a BR player, pop in a BR disc and you can discover that there is absolutely no comparison between the above mentioned technology and a technology that simply takes 1080P resolution (with 1000's of times more digital audio and video "information" by the way) and downconverts it to (Hi Def) 1080i or 720p. Better yet, an easier experiment would be to simply compare what you view on Discovery HD Theater to your old DVD player. No comparison.

There is indeed a point to getting a video source that delivers 1080P even if your set only displays 1080i or 720p.

Thanks,
Tom L Ipswich,MA

p.s. - I faithfully read everything Alan Loft has to offer because he is an A/V guru. This is the only inaccuracy I have ever seen from him and felt it was an important thing to point out.

p.p.s. - At this point and time (for various reasons I wont go into here) I do not recommend that people jump onto the HD disc bandwagon....yet.

Good post, I'm sure all will be forgiven - this is a very laid back and friendly forum.

BTW, I (and I bet others) would love it if you would go into the details about why we shouldn't jump on the HD disk bandwagon since many of us are considering it.

I have a 4:3 Toshiba Cinima Series TV 55" I bought new in November of 1998, and I am sure it's 1080i and doesn't support 720p.

It still works and has a great picture. Only cost me 4 grand at the time.

Paul

Cameron, I'm not trying to answer for Tom, but though my experience I don't believe enough of the bugs are worked out of these devices and formats to be put on the market ... my A2 has been very close on several occasions of getting tossed out of the window due to aggravation from the thing locking up, pausing and skip jipping through movies and I'm a consumer who is supposed to be half way knowledgeable about this stuff, can you imagine the average Joe who spent 400 bucks on one of these players who doesnt know a thing about firmware updates and right out of the box it locks up and quits due to not having the firmware update? Good thing I bought mine cheap through that Wal-Mart sale otherwise it would have been back to the dealer. These are only my thoughts.


Welcome aboard Tom!

Reasons not to go to HD - DVD or Blu-Ray yet:

1. There is a format war going on here, can we say BETA?
2. Another format to deal with, I have too many of these little round discs that only work in specific devices as it is.
3. HD and Blu Ray Discs cost more.
4. As brotherbob points out, technology is still buggy.
5. Not all Video stores rent HD discs.
6. As this is still very new, chances are you frineds and family will still be lending you SD DVD's
7. Up-scaling DVD such as the Oppo DV-981HD will play all SD DVD"s and, although not as good as HD DVD, look very fine. The price may be higher for the unit, but you won't have to replace existing DVD's and pay the exta for new ones. Cheaper in the long run.

8. If someone cracks the DRM, then they can arbitrarily kill all the players (internet connected) that have the cracked code on them. Or just release disks that can't be played on older units.
9. They have the option of downscaling the output to 540i if you use component video cables.

I also have a Toshiba HD 2001 32" model that supports 1080i but NOT 720p, just like Wolfzara. $2K for me.

Ummm..... the codes have been cracked for sometime. Hd-dvd was a bout week after initial release and subsequent ones take about as long and BR was about the same. There are even a couple of programs out there that will burn HD-DVDs and BR's.

They've been cracked, but only based on particular software, as I understand it. BD+ has not really been cracked; that one can be closed easily--by deploying firmware updates. AACS has been cracked, but I'm not sure if that's fixable or not.

Tom, although your follow-up clarifies what your disagreement with Alan's comment was, it still appears that what he said was correct. Those older sets that he was referring to can't even accept a 1080P input, a capability which has appeared only relatively recently in 1080 sets.

Re. BD bot really being cracked...

Caveat: I know nothing about how BD encryption works so it's not a direct argument or agreement but I will comment that...

In my business, if you have to continually redeploy firmware updates on a regular basis, the technology itself is cracked, regardless of the fact that you can tweak and gain another couple of weeks grace with an update.